Greylag
by tapioca two-step
Summary: Samus Aran, fearless bounty hunter, is now the imprinted mother of a buzzing hatchling parasite whose favorite perch is either on her shoulder or in her cleavage when she sleeps. Their life together can only end in love.
1. I

One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing

You're gonna spread your wings and take the sky

But till that morning, there is nothing can harm you

With your mother standing by.

—_Summertime_

Greylag

One

It was in an egg sac when she found it. It was floating in some sort of syrupy red liquid the color of maraschino cherries, and from then on she would always associate the little creature with fruit preserves. It was mashing itself against the murky sides of its cage and she could hear it making very unhappy squeaking noises.

Readying her power beam, she grimaced behind her helmet. She knew she shouldn't spare it; it would grow up and repopulate the same Metroid species that she had just exterminated, and then all of her efforts would have been for naught. _Metroids are not target practice,_ she thought, locking her shoulder and taking aim. _They are potent bioweapons for the Space Pirates and I cannot allow them to thrive._

It was a little thing; it would fit into her palm if she could hold it.

And then it hatched.

The bounty hunter watched, amused, as the Metroid hatchling bobbled into the air, buzzing like a hornet. It didn't seem to know how to get around quite yet; it spun in a circle like a fish with one missing fin. She sighted down her arm, readying her power beam to take out the little life form with a clean shot.

"Sorry, little guy," she said aloud.

The hatchling squeaked, sinking a little bit in the air. It seemed surprised that she was there, and answered her comment by haltingly making its way over to where she stood. The hunter stood her ground, watching as the last Metroid in existence drew closer to her raised arm.

And then it promptly stuffed its jelly-bubble body into the barrel of her power beam.

"What the—hey, get out of there." She shook her arm, trying to dislodge the creature; it squeaked with indignation and snapped its mandibles, which were the only parts of its body that it hadn't managed fit into the beam.

_Super missiles, ice missiles, and now I have a Metroid cannon_, the hunter thought as she tried to grab the waving white teeth. She finally managed to get her fingers around one of the larger mandibles and she gently pulled the hatchling out of its predicament. It collapsed in her palm like a puddle of water, trembling and buzzing with what she could only guess was fear.

"Hey," she said, bouncing her arm up and down in an attempt to get the hatchling to fly again. She knew what the actual purpose of those mandibles was, and she didn't want them to latch into her. Small as the hatchling was, enough energy would make it grow into a very big problem. She had to destroy it before its instincts to feed kicked in.

But it was…so small.

_Either way, _she thought, looking around at the barren landscape, _there isn't anything for it to feed on here. It will starve to death. Definitely. _

As the hatchling took to the air again, the hunter put her hands on her hips, watching it dance on invisible air currents. What could she do, besides kill it? _Metroids are not pets. _It wasn't like she could tame the thing and make it follow her around like some sort of dog.

She chewed her lip, thinking carefully. She could always bring it back to Headquarters. The scientists there would drool over the chance to run tests on an actual Metroid. As far as she could tell, they had never gotten any living samples of the parasites.

Perhaps some good would come of keeping the hatchling alive. For the time being, at least. But if it tried any funny business she would freeze it in a heartbeat.

The hatchling bumped into her helmet. She raised her hand and shooed it away. It squeaked with surprise but buzzed closer, settling on the rounded armor of her shoulder, trying to dig its mandibles into it. Deciding that the power suit was not sufficient nourishment, the Metroid let itself slide into the crevice between her shoulder and her neck, growling, perhaps, out of hunger.

Turning her head to look full at her hatchling, the bounty hunter smiled wanly. "There's no use getting upset with me," she said as she strode out of the chamber in search of an exit. "You have take care of yourself. All of the other Metroids are gone, and I'm not going to be a very good mother."

* * *

Part one of five. My bad habit for obscure and convoluted titles rears its ugly head again. The Greylag is a species of goose. Wiki it and connect the dots.


	2. II

One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing

You're gonna spread your wings and take the sky

But till that morning, there is nothing can harm you

With your mother standing by.

—_Summertime_

II

It was strong as strawberry jam with a personality just as tart, and Samus Aran was rather irritated that it was the third time that day that the hatchling had wedged itself into the slim space between the window and the control board. She vowed that she wasn't going to help it this time. It would never learn, she decided, unless it realized the consequences of its inquisitive actions.

However, its incessant squeaking as it flailed its mandibles in an attempt to free itself was annoying. And distracting. And irritatingly adorable.

"Hush, you," she said, leaning over her control panel to eye the stowaway. She had addressed it as 'you' so many times already that the word had become its unofficial name. "Maybe that'll teach you to go poking into things that you can't get out of."

She had tried putting it in a bottle. A jelly jar, to be more specific, emptied of its preserves. Most of her food was in vacuum sealed-packages, but she was allowed a few luxuries in her galley and she insisted on having actual fruit instead of chalky nutrient supplements. The Metroid disliked the glass jar intensely, even more so when she, as a joke, put it in a cabinet alongside the other jars of jam. Wiggling around and slamming its body against the jar had rewarded it with a short drop onto the floor and had given Samus the task of cleaning up a handful of shattered glass.

"That's strike one against you," she had told it as she brushed her hands clean of any glass fragments. Not having any other place to store the hatchling, she had realized that she had to let it roam around the ship for two days' worth of space flight back to Headquarters.

_Either way, it's nice to have a little company_, she thought as she relented and reached her hand down to save the hatchling from being compressed into a raspberry pancake. As soon as it was free, it buzzed around the open cockpit. Samus cocked her head, listening to it clumsily bump along the walls. It finally swung over to her and hovered hear the hollow of her neck, under her jaw, butting into her from time to time. She poked it away with one finger and it hovered right back to her like a fishing bobber on water, weaving in and out of her unbound hair.

"You act just like a jellyfish," she said as it squeaked with surprise at finding itself lost in a sea of gold. "My hair is not seaweed so stop pretending that you're hiding."

The hatchling hovered higher, strands of her hair still flowing over its body. It settled on the top of her head, poking at her skull with its teeth.

"Ah-ah-ah! None of that!" She pulled it off, grimacing a little as it clasped frantically at her hair. It wriggled out of her grasp and butted against her forehead, buzzing irritably.

"The term 'personal space' means nothing to you, does it?" she asked, sitting back from the yoke. Stretching her arms over her head, she checked to see if the autopilot was on. "C'mon," she said, standing up. "Let's go get something to eat."

The hatchling followed her into the narrow hatch that opened up into the gunship's small galley.

Samus opened the sliding door of the small icebox, pulling out a protein drink, a handful of dried jerky, and a container of fruit cubes.

"You don't like the cold, do you?" she asked when she saw that the hatchling hadn't entered the galley space. She shut the icebox and put the food items on the small shelf that served as a table. "Come here. Let's see if you can eat any of this stuff." She unscrewed the lid of her drink, taking a swallow as the hatchling curiously approached her.

"I don't know how often you Metroids have to eat," she told it as she took out a cube of mango from the container, "but I know that you're supposed to grow up fast, so it must take a lot of life energy." She held out the cold cube to the hatchling, sipping her drink and waiting. The Metroid came close to the golden fruit and tapped it gently with one of its larger mandibles, but otherwise did nothing.

_Maybe they don't need to eat to survive_, she thought as the mango juice ran down her fingers and dripped onto the floor. "Watch it, you're making me make a mess." _Maybe they just need life energy to get physically bigger. It's something I'll have to ask the scientists. _

"You don't want it?" she asked, offering it again to the Metroid. It made an annoyed noise and floated towards the ceiling.

"Huh." The bounty hunter popped the piece into her mouth, chewing slowly. All at once the Metroid squealed and rushed at her face, butting its jellyfish body against her lips. She laughed, almost choking. "Oh-ho, now you want it because _I'm _eating it! Too bad for you! You should have eaten when you had the chance."

Grumbling, the hatchling scratched feebly at her zero suit.

"Here," Samus held out another piece of fruit, this time a fat raspberry. "It goes with your little head-nodes."

The hatchling hovered delicately over her fingers. Its body hummed as it fastened its outer mandibles onto her skin for balance. Its inner teeth flicked at the raspberry before Samus could make out the very distant sounds of sucking.

"Much better," Samus said with pride, reaching for a stick of jerky.

The hatchling decided that it did indeed have a taste for fruit, and six raspberries and all of the mango cubes later, its body was significantly heavier and the coloring of its transparent membrane was a sherbet mix of sunset. A bit of mango was still stuck to its inner mandibles as it buzzed lazily down the cooridor after Samus, following her back into the cockpit and jamming itself into her neck when she sat back down.

"Not so very long now," she said absently, adjusting the pilot's seat settings and closing her eyes as it reclined. "You'll get a decent meal at the Academy, I guess. You can suck all the heads you want."

The hatchling observed its mother for a moment, floating closer to her hair. It chirped softly at her; when she didn't reply it buzzed down to her shoulder and alit on the hollow of her throat. The incline of the chair forced its water-balloon body down the front of Samus's zero suit until it was caught by the swell of her breasts.

Samus opened her eyes and looked down her body. The Metroid was thrumming against her chest, propped up in the crevice of her cleavage, staining her zero suit with mango juice.

She fell asleep to the lullaby of her hatchling's hum.


	3. III

One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing

You're gonna spread your wings and take the sky

But till that morning, there is nothing can harm you

With your mother standing by.

—_Summertime_

III

"Where _are _you?"

Samus stood in the middle of the cramped galley, jar in one hand, jar lid in the other, with the back of each hand braced on her hips. She could _hear _it—it wasn't as if Metroids had a stealth mode—but finding the little buzzing bugger to deliver it to Ceres was proving to be a challenge.

Quite simply, the hatchling did _not_ want to go. As soon as they had docked with the massive space colony, the Metroid had zoomed out of sight and was currently hiding from the bounty hunter. It buzzed louder whenever she spoke but refused to come out from wherever it had squeezed itself into.

She had checked her icebox first—just in case—and then had systematically gone through her cramped gunship's cabinets, corners, and crannies to try to flush the Metroid out. She had even checked inside her power suit, but it turned up empty.

"I'll turn you into marmalade if you don't come out," Samus warned. "I know you don't like to be confined but I can't just let you follow me into the space station. They'd flash-fry you in a second."

Her coaxing wasn't working; the scientists waiting for her to come out of her gunship were probably wondering why she was taking so long. Sighing, Samus put the jar and the lid down onto the counter and opened the icebox, taking out the container of fruit. All that remained were a couple of raspberries, a pineapple slice, and three quarters of an apple. She dumped the fruit into the open jar and wiped her hands off.

"I'm getting into my power suit now," she said loudly. "You'd better not touch my fruit."

She strolled out of the galley, a small smile on her face.

The Metroid hatchling was hiding in what it thought was a very clever space—_behind _the icebox. The electrical wires leading into the cold container were pleasantly warm, and it would have been hard for Samus to reach back to capture it. But the smell of fruit was too much for the hatchling to ignore, and it crept cautiously out from its hiding place, wiggling its mandibles with glee as it saw the rainbow assortment of fruit in the jar.

Oblivious to the very obvious trap, the hatchling hummed its way over to the fruit salad, lowering itself into the open mouth of the jar and attaching itself to the apple. Entirely absorbed in its eating, it didn't notice Samus, now fully donned in her power suit sans helmet, appear around the galley corner until it was too late.

"Got'cha!" Samus laughed, poking a finger into the jar. The Metroid squeaked and tried to fly away, but Samus cupped her hand over the lid.

"Oh, no. You're coming with me," she said good-naturedly, bringing the jar close to her face. To her surprise, the Metroid spun itself upside down and nipped angrily at her finger.

"What's the matter?" Samus removed her hand and the Metroid popped out of the jar and butted against her neck. It sounded like a broken radiator.

"You are a strange little jellybean," she said, feeling the hatchling make a slow orbit through her ponytail. "Come on, stop playing around. You know perfectly well that I can't take care of you. You haven't had a decent meal in days and I'm pretty sure you can't survive off of apples. Although," she mused, looking at the core of the apple in the bottom of the jar, "it seems that you like them enough."

Reaching in and removing the inedible apple core, Samus gestured to the jar. "Okay. It's time for you to get in."

The Metroid didn't move from the hollow of her neck. She sighed.

"Don't worry. You'll be fine. But you can't stay here. I can't take good care of you. I'm not your mother."

_Even though you seem to think so. _

_But Metroids are not pets. _

She guided the tiny hatchling back into the jar with her palm and screwed on the lid. The Metroid squeaked.

_I wonder if I have to poke holes in the lid,_ she thought as she slipped her head into her helmet. She looked around and figured the hatchling wouldn't be in the jar long enough to suffocate.

With that, she beamed down from her ship and was greeted by the docking bay foreman and a balding man in a white lab coat. Samus towered over both of them by at least a foot and had to crane her neck downwards to see into their faces.

"Welcome to Ceres Space Station, Samus Aran," the man in the lab coat said in a high, wheezy voice. "My colleagues and I have been told that you have a specimen for us."

Samus held up her hatchling. It didn't seem to like the docking bay lights and hid in the shadow of her hand.

The foreman made a face when he saw the Metroid, but the scientist pushed his glasses up further on his beak-like nose and squinted. "A mason jar, Miss Aran?"

"It was the only container I could find."

_It is fitting though. You're supposed to store jelly in jars._

"And there are other foreign objects with the specimen! It will have to be decontaminated."

He held out his gloved hand for the hatchling, but Samus involuntarily brought the jar closer to her chest. When he gave her a tight-lipped look, she shrugged. "I can carry it for the time being."

"Indeed you can. Follow me, then."

She followed the balding scientist out of the docking bay and down a long, sterile looking corridor. The walls were broken up by portholes looking out onto the floating asteroids spinning in breathless space around the station. The scientist walked with quick, nervous steps, and he kept looking over his shoulder at the jarred Metroid.

"Did the specimen display any unusual behaviors when you first encountered it?" he asked suddenly.

Samus tilted her head in memory.

_It was so small. A raspberry on a bush. Helpless._

_And it followed me._

"No. Why?"

"It just seems unusual that you would take pains to bring the Metroid on board your ship and deliver it to us."

It was buzzing against her chest. The feeling relaxed her.

"It is the last, after all."

"So it is." The scientist mused. Samus stared at the back of his head. She didn't like him. He gave her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, the same bad feeling that she felt when entering a dangerous situation. His hands looked too rough to handle her hatchling. Suddenly she was loathe to the idea of leaving her Metroid here by itself, in the rough hands of scientists that only cared for the prospect of squeezing out scientific knowledge from its quivering frame.

_But Metroids aren't pets, Samus Aran. What can you do otherwise?_

_They will keep it alive, at least._

Samus tapped her fingers against the glass, trying to word her question as nonchalantly as possible. "When you do start running tests, is it going to hurt the Metroid?"

The lab assistant pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. "I don't think Metroids are able to feel physical sensation," he said, "so whatever tests we do to it, it won't matter. They are only parasites, after all."

Pressing her lips into a hard line, Samus looked down at the jar in her hands. _You've never studied these creatures, so how can you be so sure? _"Can you at least give me an example of what you do to your sample specimens? Are there a lot of injections? Are cold temperatures involved? Will you feed it?"

The man looked up at her, the fluorescent lights overhead making his bald scalp glisten as they walked through the pressure door that led to the station's organic laboratory. "I think I know what you're getting at, Samus Aran, and I have to say I'm surprised. You above all people should know the ruthless nature of the Metroid species. You yourself were given the order to exterminate their kind on SR388. And yet you are worried about the well being of one of their spawn?"

He jabbed a finger at the jelly jar and Samus had to restrain herself from wrapping her arms even more protectively over her hatchling.

_It's just that it's so…small._

"Metroids are not pets, Miss Aran. Nevertheless, you needn't worry about it. Killing the last Metroid in existence would rob the scientific community of unimaginable amounts of knowledge about such a fascinatingly morbid species."

They stopped at a sealed hatch and he tapped in a code on the keypad next to the door. It slid open with a hiss and they walked into a small antechamber alit with soft blue lights. A yellow and black biohazard warning sign lined one of the walls. There was a door opposite them, flanked by two windows that showed the interior of the organic laboratory. Clear containment chambers, surrounded by computer screens that monitored their status, stretched from the ceiling to the floor. All but two of the chambers were filled with different life forms that Samus hardly recognized. Scientists in white lab suits moved from one containment tube to the next like a fall of snowflakes.

Her fingers instinctually tightened on the jar. Her hatchling was butting against the glass under her hand, squeaking as it wondered why it could not feel her warmth.

The lab assistant turned around and held out his hand, bulky in its white rubber glove. "I believe we can take it from here, Miss Aran. Thank you for your service to the Federation—and to humankind."

She lifted up the jar. The Metroid was rolling one of the raspberries around with its mandibles and growling; she could feel the vibrations through the glass.

_Be good,_ she thought as the scientist reached out and plucked the jar from her hands. He brought it to eye level, shaking it a bit. The hatchling bumped against the lid and Samus flinched.

"I trust you can find your way back to the docking bay from here?" he asked, backing away from her towards the laboratory door. Samus, still staring at the Metroid, nodded.

"Well, then, we'll be off." He turned and keyed another security code into a pad by the door. Samus started and quickly reached out her hand.

"Wait!"

The scientists turned. His bleary brown eyes regarded her with aloof impatience.

"It hasn't fed on any life energy so it might be hungry."

"And?"

"It, ah, likes fruit." It sounded lame even to her ears.

"Indeed." The scientist pressed the keypad again and the door hissed open. "We'll keep that in mind."

Samus's hand remained raised until the door closed like a pair of jaws behind the scientist and the Metroid. She could see the other lab assistants rush over to the two, forming a quick crowd of whitecoats around the pompous man and her hatchling. She wondered how it would fare in large crowds. It would probably wonder what was going on. It would probably wonder where _she _was.

Samus Aran spun on her heel and stalked back down the long, too-white hallway, her reflection in the portholes showing her stiff back and long strides. Scientists and security guards parted before her towering frame as she made her way back to her gunship.

She wasn't its mother. She wouldn't have been able to take care of it anyway. Soon it wouldn't be small and adorable and it would be a threat to her and all that she stood for. It was much better this way. Her hatchling could be used for the good of humanity, and it would be safe from all that would try to take its life. Like herself.

It was very quiet in the gunship and she undocked from Ceres and took to the stars once more.

Not thirty minutes later, her control panel lit up like a display of fireworks.

A distress call.

From Ceres.


	4. IV

One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing

You're gonna spread your wings and take the sky

But till that morning, there is nothing can harm you

With your mother standing by

-_Summertime_

IV

Ceres was silent, save for the sigh of solar winds that buffeted its cracked and brittle frame. As soon as Samus stepped out of her gunship she knew that she would find no life here. The same hallway that she had walked down not an hour earlier was peppered with slash marks and bullet holes in the walls. Several of the portholes were cracked, and the harsh fluorescent lights had all been broken. The glass crunched under her boots as she walked.

It was familiar destruction, but it turned her stomach nonetheless. She would know this type of brutality anywhere, even if there were no bodies heaped on the floor to tell of the loss of life. They had probably all been jettisoned like flotsam into the vacuum of space, lost forever to the cold black velvet. A perverse funeral—but she didn't expect Space Pirates to have any sort of decency in the treatment of their victims.

They keypad of the first hatch she came to was smashed in, bare wires still sparking and spitting. The actual hatch door was crumpled on the floor in front of the threshold. She stepped over it easily, passing through the antechamber and into the organic lab.

There was no hum of computers, no clicking of fingers on keys, no sounds of creatures in their biotubes. They were dead, as well. Exactly as she feared. She walked through the forest of tubes, looking carefully in each one. There were several plant-like specimens, some birdlike creatures with scales instead of wings, and an assortment of aquatic parasites. She was too late to save all of them. There was nothing more she could do here except try to track down the culprits.

_It was…small_, Samus told herself again. _It was probably the first one to be—_

She stopped herself. She had to look, at least. She had to try.

And so she did.

She did not have to look far.

The only door in the laboratory that she could force open led into a dim hallway. She followed it, her footfalls echoing, until she came to a hatch that opened up into a large cargo area.

"You," she said, and the relief that flooded her voice made her weak in the knees.

It had been transferred from its jar into a containment tube, barely big enough for its body. It was propped up against the wall next to a tower of metal supply boxes, and she would have missed it in the gloom if not for the overjoyed squee it let out when she emerged through the doorway.

"What are you doing in here all by yourself?" she asked as she picked her way over the scattered cargo debris on the floor. When she reached her hatchling she picked up the tube and laughed as it positively vibrated with the hatchling's joy. "You must have had a real scare, huh? At least the scientists knew enough to hide you from those bastards. You deserve better than to be made their slave."

The Metroid hatchling squeaked.

"Either way, it's okay. I've got you." Her voice took on a soothing tone. "I've got you."

Holding the container under her right arm, she tried to open the lid with her free hand, but the metal slipped in her armor-encased fingers. _It's probably one of those containers that you need two hands to open, _she decided. _And I guess it's not the best idea to let it out here, anyway._ _It could get hurt. _She peered into the glass._ It doesn't seem to be any worse for wear._

The station was dead. The scientist with the angry, rough hands was dead. There was no one left who wanted to run her hatchling through scientific tests.

"Looks like I'll be toting you around after all until I find somewhere else to put you," she said. "You'll probably eat all of my fruit and violate my privacy all the time. I shall have no peace at all."

_Metroids are not pets, Samus Aran._

"Then it's a good thing that you're not my pet," she whispered conspiratorially to the Metroid. "I am your mother. For now, at least. Just until you get big enough to avoid getting stuck in small spaces." She laughed aloud and turned to go.

"How _touching._"

Samus flinched away from the hissing voice as if she was struck by a physical blow. She mentally kicked herself for not sensing him, for not scanning the room, for not doing _anything _and being stupidly distracted and completely oblivious to the cloaked form that perched like a vulture on the top of the storage boxes. Whirling around on her heel and simultaneously switching the hatchling's container to her other hand as she sighted her power beam, she could only watch with cold hatred as Ridley reared up from his perch, wiry wings spread, mouth open in a jagged smile.

She was not equipped to fight him. Not here, not now, with so much at stake. The thrumming beneath her arm vibrated her very heartstrings.

"You have something of mine," Ridley's words oozed over her ears like black slime as he crawled down the pile of boxes. Samus kept backing towards the door, her power beam level with the dragon's eyes.

"You own nothing here," she spat.

Eyes smoldering like burning coals, Ridley gestured with a clawed hand to the container under her arm. "Give it to me."

Samus tightened her grip on it. "It is _mine_," she ground out.

My _hatchling. _Not _yours. I am its mother. _

Ridley took a step forwards, his foot crushing scattered debris under its weight. "Give it to me," he said in a voice that was venom in the air, "and I shall let you live."

"I do not value my life above the well-being of the entire galaxy," Samus said, drawing herself up. "I would let the hatchling and myself die before I give in to _you_."

"Very well."

It happened before she could blink. Ridley's tail, which usually waved like a scaly banner behind his body, had been hooked around one of the storage boxes he had been perched on. It surged forwards like a loosened bowstring and one of the huge boxes slingshotted out of place, tumbling through the air in a collision course with her body. She dove out of the way with millimeters to spare, landing heavily on her left shoulder as the box slammed into wall she had been standing in front of, bursting to pieces. The metal of the canister under her arm groaned but held firm; the hatchling inside was chirping frantically.

_It's okay, I've got you_, she thought dimly. She rolled onto her back and prepared to stand when she saw Ridley's hulking iridescent form come crashing like a meteor out of the air, bearing down inexorably on her body. She could not stop him. He would crush both of them.

She flung her arm out and the hatchling's tube sailed through the air just as Ridley landed full-force on top of Samus's body, crushing her into the metal panels of the floor. She grit her teeth as his claws scraped against her power suit, the action registering as intense pressure in her chest. Nevertheless, she raised her right arm and fired a volley of charge beams into the scales of Ridley's stomach. Screeching, he took to the air again, wind from his wings peppering Samus with bits of metal and glass.

When she sat up, she saw the Metroid's canister rolling to and fro on the ground nearly a dozen paces from where she was. Ridley, circling in the air above her, was getting ready for another dive, but whether or not he was aiming for her or the hatchling she could not tell. She decided to be safe and started sprinting towards the squeaking shape.

Ridley opened his mouth and a rain of fire fell from his jaws, slamming into the ground around Samus's feet as she ran. One of them struck her shoulder and almost sent her down, but she staggered back into her gait as she quickly approached the tube.

"_Gah_!" The purple whiplash of her archenemy's tail swung out of the gloom at the level of her neck, catching her right where her helmet and power suit met and sending her tumbling through the air. She met a short sudden stop at the far wall, collapsing onto all fours and coughing convulsively.

Ridley, his wings beating out a triumphant tempo in the air, reached down and gripped the Metroid's canister delicately with one of his talons. "I believe I shall be adopting this little one," he crowed at her. "You never struck me as the motherly type anyway." His laugh overwhelmed the Metroid's panicked squeals.

Samus lurched to her feet, swaying unsteadily. "This isn't over," she said in a breathless voice, raising her power beam once more. "The hatchling isn't yours!"

But Ridley was ignoring her. Instead, his wings were beating harder and their sweep was grander—he was preparing to escape.

"I said this _isn't over, Ridley!_" Her voice cracked on her cry and she clamped down her hand on her beam, powering up the most powerful shot her underequipped power suit could produce. Ridley's head was up; he wasn't looking at her. She released the bright glowing star of energy and watched as it arched through the air, connecting with the same talon that the dragon was carrying the Hatchling in. The beam struck the scales just above the canister, burning through to the tender skin beneath.

Ridley screamed in pain and his clutch on the tube loosened; the Metroid began to fall. Samus, clutching her side, stumbled towards it, hoping to catch it before it struck the ground.

She never got the chance.

Just as she raised her arms and spread her fingers to welcome her hatchling back, the dragon tucked his wings and plunged towards his target. Samus could only watch as the leader of the Space Pirates snatched the Metroid out of her tenuous grasp as easily as she would have picked a raspberry off of a bush. In the instant it remained before her eyes she memorized the way Ridley's claws scraped against the reinforced glass of the canister, the way that the Hatchling was pressed to the bottom of its cage, the way its jellyfish dome was still tinted pink from the fruit it had eaten earlier.

_So small. _

And then in a rush of wind and wings, it was lost to her.

Samus craned her neck, watching as the great winged pirate swooped upwards through the circular station and out of sight. Her fists clenched with impotent rage. She knew where he was going. But by the time she got there, it would be too late.

But she had to follow them, at least.

She had to try.

* * *

The author is lazy and can't count so there will be like six-ish chapters instead of five or maybe seven because the author stupid yeah seven sounds like a good number okay g'bye.


	5. V

One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing

You're gonna spread your wings and take the sky

But till that morning, there is nothing can harm you

With your mother standing by.

—_Summertime_

V

Zebes was, as ever, filled with the ghosts of her childhood.

Norfair, was, as ever, the predestined battleground.

The two titans were locked together on the magma-ravaged ground, churning up great wads of earth and grunting with exertion but otherwise silent. Samus, her Varia suit protecting her body from the hell-hot and acrid air, was down on one knee, her left arm braced above her head against Ridley's upper jaw, forcing his head up and back into a near-breaking position. She was charging her wave beam, and was not going to let go of Ridley before she had loosed her shot.

The dragon, however, had other plans, and he closed his teeth on Samus's arm. Her armor was too strong for his teeth to break through, but he was not aiming to dismember her. With a violent twist of his head he flung Samus's body to the side just as she released the trigger on her wave beam, tossing her body through the air and causing her shot to go wide. She stood again as Ridley backed to the opposite end of the platform, his dark purple hide gleaming and cold as a snake in starlight.

"What are you fighting for this time, Sam?" he asked liquidly, arching his wings and taking to the air.

Samus followed him with her eyes. He aligned his tail with her body and lashed it down like a whip. She instantly dropped into morph ball form, rolling nimbly out of the way and coming out of the roll with her cannon raised. Her shots were true this time, and Ridley's roar of pain vibrated the thick air around her.

"You would not understand even if I told you," Samus sneered back at him, launching herself into the air with a screw attack that allowed her to narrowly avoid the river of fire that Ridley loosed from his throat. Another well-placed shot and Ridley landed heavily on all fours on the platform, screeching.

"You cannot be serious!" Ridley sounded incredulous. "You seek the Metroid? You have come here to _save _a Metroid? You, who wiped out the entire _species_?" His voice pitched into a taunting snarl. "You do like to play pretend, don't you? You think you can take on Mother Brain as it is now? You think you can save your precious hatchling one?"

Samus aimed her arm canon. "I will not put up with your prattling, you parrot_._"

His body spun around and his tail whipped out, striking her across the chest, knocking her backwards; she stumbled for purchase on the slick metal, waves of heat from the magma distorting her vision.

"You really do think you're its mother, don't you? How supremely funny!" Ridley hunched his bony shoulders and his mouth opened in a snarling laugh. "Mothers are willing to die for their offspring, aren't they? What if I told you that your precious young one is already corrupted? Are you willing to die for something that doesn't even remember who you are?"

The warriors rushed forward simultaneously, each meeting the other in the middle of the platform, hand to claw, scales on metal straining.

"I will see you dead, Ridley!" Samus bellowed.

"I won't be the only one, Samus Virginia Aran."

And the ground shook under the place of their meeting.

* * *

_They've gotta be kidding me_, Samus thought wearily as she poked her head through a hatch that led to yet another area that didn't have a recharge station. She sighed in exasperation and leapt off of the ledge, grimacing at the pain in her ankle. Her suit was not absorbing damage as well as it should. One of the things she despised about Norfair was that, thanks to the Space Pirates making the crater their domain, there were hardly any recharging generators to support her power suit.

But she would push through to the end. She had a biological duty to fulfill. No matter that her target was not human. No matter that it had already been used to spawn—_oh, please, no!—_more of its kind. No matter that what Ridley had said was probably true. They had brought it here where its natural instincts would have kicked in immediately.

But every time she encountered a Metroid, she could not bring herself to shoot. She would lift her arm and perhaps use an ice missile to incapacitate the parasite, but in the next moment she would flee. She could not risk it.

_It might have grown…!_

She worked strategically, her mind and movements mechanical. She had but one purpose here. All those who impeded her way would pay the ultimate price.

All those save the Metroids. She had slaughtered them without hesitation once before, but _these_…

…one of these were _hers_.

"I'm here!" she called out periodically, her voice echoing in the cavernous depths. "You can come out of hiding now!"

_Where are you?_

She found herself breathing heavier the further she walked, and tried to ignore the fact that she was absolutely dead-tired and beaten down to the core. Ridley had not gone down easily. He never did.

The ground turned sandy underneath her feet and she pulled herself up and over and other ledge, shooting the thick bluish membrane over the hatchway. When she entered the next room, she winced when she saw a pair of the biggest Sidehoppers that she had ever seen skittering around on the silty floor. They immediately sensed her presence and began making their way over to her position, leaping at heights that dwarfed her height by at least a meter.

Samus checked her super missile readout. _Two missiles won't cut it,_ she thought. _I'll have to get around them._

She strode forwards and then ran two steps before launching her graceful body into the air in a somersaulting space jump that left the Sidehoppers scrambling over each other to try and get to her. She landed easily on her feet on the other side of the room in front of another hatch, which she quickly passed through.

Exhaling a short _hmph_, she turned away from the hatch to continue her search. She found herself face-to-face with another Sidehopper.

"Shit."

She didn't even have room to step to the side as the creature smashed into her and knocked her onto her back, its long hairy legs scrabbling against her damaged suit. Gritting her teeth, she chambered both of her legs and kicked out at its body, knocking it away from her enough that she could get some room to move around. Curling herself tightly into a morph ball, she left a trail of bombs in her wake to dissuade it from following her, but the resulting blasts merely made it angrier.

_I don't have the time or energy for this, _she thought as she backed away from the approaching alien. It was between her and the door that she needed to get through. She could not waste ammunition in killing it.

In the end, she didn't have to.

The sound started as a low droning sound, so quiet and gentle that the bounty hunter thought that it was merely the ambient noise of moving magma under her feet. But even as she registered the noise, it rapidly grew louder until she could feel it in her very skin, a vibrating, relentless thrumming that made her teeth buzz. Even the Sidehopper was still, and they both listened in breathless curiosity at the approaching sound. Samus shifted her arm cannon from her current target to where she thought the sound was coming from. It sounded like an ancient fan propeller.

It crested a sandy hill off to her right.

And it was _huge. _

Realization and something like despair took hold of Samus, and she momentarily quailed.

Ridley was right.

It was not hers any more.

* * *

It's not Metroid anything without a battle with Ridley, but hyuk hyuk kyuk, I didn't write the full battle. This isn't about effing Ridley and currently I am so tired of writing action scenes with violence and death. Jumpcuts for President.

also eight chapters now. eff numbers.


	6. VI

One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing

You're gonna spread your wings and take the sky

But till that morning, there is nothing can harm you

With your mother standing by.

—_Summertime_

VI

Very few things surprised her, but seeing the giant Metroid swoop like a shadow onto the Sidehopper and drain its life in the space of a few seconds was enough to alarm Samus to the very real danger she was now facing.

_Five—no, six, _she thought as she counted the nuclei within the Metriod's clear dome. She squinted. _Seven?_

The Metroid floating in front of her was a monster within its own species. Looking at the carcasses that blended into the sand at her feet, it preyed upon whatever wandered into its sandy, warm territory, even if those wanderers happened to be its own kind.

It couldn't have been but twelve hours since Ridley had stolen the Ceres containment capsule from her hands.

She almost called out its name, almost reached for the apple that she had brought with her all the way down to the bubbling depths of Norfair.

She knew. And she knew that it did not know.

_It is just another threat, Aran. You must exterminate it. Metroids are not pets._

Her rebellious arm would not raise.

_They are not pets._

_But this one…!_

And so she stood, a statue of indecision and weak hope, as the Metroid cast the Sidehopper aside with a flick of its mandibles and launched itself at her with the ferocity of a tiger and the scream that almost—_almost_—sounded like the sound it had once made in the galley of a gunship, seconds or minutes or days before.

The force of their colliding bodies knocked Samus onto her stomach; she tried to get up and shake it off but the mandibles were digging into her, jerking her periodically off of her feet, sending barbs of pain laced with deadly weakness into her limbs, making her too tired to fight or move or breathe.

She tried to scream _get away, it's me, don't you remember that I was your mother_, but the hatchling's imprint of her had all but vanished and it was devouring her energy as if she had been a slice of fruit. It was killing her, draining her of her life, her heartbeat, and as she sank into the sand she cursed herself for being stupid enough to fall victim to her age-old weakness of wanting to protect those who did not have the luxury of being able to protect themselves.

She should have known. She had pitied the hatchling because it had been _so small_, but she forgot that she herself, a bounty hunter both violent and vindictive, had once been just as helpless.

But she had grown.

And so had the hatchling.

The mandibles that once worked happily over a small square of mango were now immobilizing her with the inexorable airless force of death. The energy readout on the screen of her helmet's visor was running down like sand through an hourglass. Fifty. Thirty. Ten.

And then—

Nothing.

She didn't realize that she had squeezed her eyes shut after watching her last energy tank dwindle down to zero. But it had stopped. One energy unit away from death, the nauseating, panic-inducing drain had stopped.

The Metroid had let her go.

She barely had the strength to pull herself up off of the ground; all she could manage was to flip herself from her hands and knees to a slumped-over sitting position, looking up at the Metroid from between hunched shoulders. It hurt to move. It hurt to _breathe_.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked, her voice catching on a shuddering breath.

It seemed to recoil into itself at the sound of her voice. It squealed at her, an amplification from the tiny noises it once made, and the sound nearly burst her eardrums. Mandibles quivering, it approached her again, slowly this time, nearly sinking to her level before it was spooked by the sudden quick motion of Samus raising her arm cannon and aiming it point-blank at its body.

Looking at it, she still couldn't believe how big her hatchling had grown. It was nearly twice the size of any other second-stage Metroid she had encountered.

_It must have been the fruit,_ she thought, and the thought of the apple in her pocket made her sick of her own stupidity.

"Stay _back_," she said with as much hostility in her voice as she could muster. She was appalled with herself that she still could not bring herself to pull the trigger. "I will kill you if you come any closer."

Words meant nothing to it. She knew that. So when it approached again like a kicked puppy _(Metroids are not pets, Aran!) _she aimed a careful charge beam at its clear quivering raspberry jelly dome. It cried out and reeled back, bouncing clumsily off of the ceiling. Samus, her breathing labored, pushed herself to her feet, bracing her free hand on her knee. Not having strength enough to even raise her head, her arm came up and she fired a blind shot in the hatchling's direction. The beam went wide, but the Metroid had gotten the idea.

When she looked up, she told herself not to be disappointed. The Metroid was gone.

For a moment, the bounty hunter felt lost. She had failed herself and her hatchling. The only mercy she could offer it now was what she should have done in the first place—although killing something that big could hardly be quick enough to be merciful.

And there was still something else she needed to meet.

She had not acknowledged Ridley's words during their battle, but nevertheless they had registered in her heart with the force like a blow to the gut.

So she walked on, winding through hallways and hatches, finally finding a recharging station before approaching what she had been dreading from the start.

_You think you can take on Mother Brain as it is now?_

Samus stood looking at the door, her hand on her hip and her heart in her throat.

And she walked into the chamber.

She had felt like she was being watched ever since she had stepped out of her gunship and now she knew that she had been.

After all, it was a mother's duty to keep an eye on her children.

_Mother knows best. _

_Mother knows. _

"Hello, Mother."

* * *

My birthday present to all of you wonderful wonderful people. :3

'The Scene' is next. You know where this is going so you'd better get ready because I've got my angst cannon out and Sun Kil Moon on an infinite loop.


	7. VII

One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing

You're gonna spread your wings and take the sky

But till that morning, there is nothing can harm you

With your mother standing by.

—_Summertime_

VII

_My mother was so much braver than I could have ever been_.

The bounty hunter did not know why these words came unbidden into her mind.

Perhaps it was the juxtaposition in her mind between the mother she had barely known and the Mother she had been terrorized by for nearly half of her life.

Her real mother had died to save her.

The Mother who was rising up from the ruins of her Zebetite tank, rearranging herself into a mechanized monster that made even Samus shiver where she stood, was willing to kill her in order to save herself.

_And I, _Samus thought numbly. _What kind of mother am I?_

Mother Brain bent her head—now equipped with jaws that drooled gray machine lubricant all over the floor—on her flexible neck and let loose a knee-weakening roar. Her eggplant-shaped body was hunchbacked but still towered over Samus on clawed back legs. Her single eye, rimmed with orange and shot through with angry red lines, gazed upon Samus with a look of pure, unadulterated—

—triumph?

Samus could tell that she was no longer capable of cognitive speech or thought; that she hadn't been ever since she had gone defective. Hard to believe that this being saved her, once, and had built that suit that she was wearing now.

So she spoke with the words she could understand; with missiles, charge beams, wave shots, well-placed bombs. And Mother Brain answered her back with flamethrowers and sonic booms that nearly knocked Samus senseless.

They spoke of love and loss of each other, neither one bending a knee, neither one wanting to relent in the face of the other's wrath. But whether she wanted to or not, Samus was wearing down, and after she had spent two hundred missiles on Mother Brain's mechanical head, she started to wonder if there was something she had missed, some clue in Ridley's warning, some hidden secret that Mother Brain was not letting her in on.

She found out soon enough.

It felt like the air was being sucked out of the room as Mother Brain arched her neck backwards, hissing in though her mouth. Samus reflexively stepped backwards, presenting a quarter profile target to her enemy. She had an idea that something devastating was coming.

The broad beam of light from Mother's eye that cleaved through the air was a myriad of the most stunning and vibrant colors that Samus had ever seen.

And when it hit her she couldn't even draw breath to scream.

The force of the blast slammed her up against the far wall, pinning her against the metal, holding her there as it carved points of agony into her power suit. The weapons readout in her visor short circuited; she decided that was little matter, for she couldn't even close her eyes against such pain.

The attack ended what seemed like hours later, and Samus slid down the wall, her knees crumpling when her feet hit the floor. That single attack had drained three quarters of her energy tanks. She would not survive another hit of that magnitude.

_Stand, Aran, _she mentally ordered herself; her left wrist twitched convulsively at the order. _You will die if you do not stand. _

Mother stood over her, her weight making the floor groan. Opening her mouth, she let loose a purple ring of energy that hit Samus on the back, knocking her to the side. She was laughing at her prey. Gloating already, thinking that she had already won. Samus would not give her that satisfaction.

The bounty hunter grit her teeth. The pain was nearly making her lose the mental concentration needed to keep her suit functioning. With a grunt, she splayed her hand on the floor, pushing her body up, holding her right arm as she brought herself into a pitiful stand, her knees bent inwards and her back bowed. She had to think of something. Mother Brain could not be immortal. There was always a way. She just had to live long enough to figure it out.

She shuffled forward. One foot, then the other.

She raised her arm cannon again.

Almost haughtily, the robot overlord in front of her took a heavy step forwards; the shift in weight made the floor shudder and Samus went down heavily on one knee, visibly panting. She looked up, glaring behind her visor, blue eyes blazing.

That noise again. The gathering glow of energy flickering in quick luminous lines on Mother Brain's spiked head.

_This is not good. _

Her head was tucking back. She was aiming her final blow.

_Oh, Mother. _

"Skree!"

She could only watch, a helpless kneeling figure on the ground, as her deux ex machina came out of the shadows in a blur of red and rage, colliding with Mother Brain's head with all the force of a warrior with a soul to save.

Mother Brain reeled backwards, horrible shrieks falling from her drooling jaws, as the monster of a Metroid latched onto her head, spikes and all, and began feeding. She tried to shake it off, but the parasite held on tenaciously with its mandibles despite the jagged spikes from the Mother Brain cutting into its membrane.

_What are you doing_? Samus's lips formed the words, but her breath failed her. She watched from under sweat-sticky lashes as the Metroid—her mango-fed parasite, her thrumming baby hatchling—brought Mother Brain shrieking to her knees.

_Get 'er, _she mentally coaxed it, even as her vision began to blur. _Oh, baby, you've got her where you want her. Just hold on and don't let go until she's down._

Slowly, Mother Brain's jaws ceased their Piranha-like snapping; her metal limbs folded into themselves, reminding Samus of a dead insect. The shrieks died down to mournful sighs, and then the room was quiet.

The Metroid detached with a short thrum and buzzed around the room, squealing with what sounded like laughter to Samus but what was probably a triumphant battle cry.

She did not mind it, then, when the Metroid once again loomed over her weakened state, mandibles flared, ready to drain her dry. Gratitude swelled in a wave and crashed over her, and, shamefully enough, tears sprang into her eyes. She would not have to kill it. It could live. Little matter that there were Metroids in the universe again. Little matter that she would not be around to stem their spread.

How soft everything felt, how warm, how safe. Little wonder she had never feared death, if this is what it was like.

"Skree!"

She opened her eyes and was surprised to find herself completely surrounded by raspberries.

The Metroid was spread over her in a gelatinous cloud, covering every inch of her power suit, smothering her into the ground as gently as it could, blocking out her senses to the surrounding room. Its buzzing body made hers hum in tandem all the way through to her heart, thrumming especially poignantly at the space where her neck met her shoulder, and she smiled and snorted with soft reflexive laughter because it tickled.

Seldom, if ever, had Samus Aran felt so safe. So loved. It was a feeling she had only shared with her parents and the Chozo.

_I'm home, _she thought woozily, looking blearily up at her hatchling's raspberry nuclei. Reaching out to see if she could touch them, she found that her body felt whole. She looked at her energy readout and found, to her surprise, that her power suit was recharging with remarkable speed.

"My little baby," she murmured. "You didn't forget your mother after all."

Her hatchling was breathing life back into her broken body. It had stolen energy directly from Mother Brain and was using to it nurse Samus back to health.

_Who is the mother in this situation, exactly_? Samus thought, pawing around at her hip for the apple that she had stored.

"Hey," she whispered hoarsely. "I've got a present for you." She held the apple in her palm, bringing the fruit close to the Metroid's inner mandibles.

The Metroid's happy skree nearly burst her eardrums and the apple was gone out of her hand like it had been sucked up into a vacuum. Samus laughed aloud.

"I was right. It was the fruit that made you grow so big, wasn't it?"

Her limbs were bursting with newness; her power suit hummed with power.

_We will leave here together. Somehow we will make it, together. _

But fate would not allow Samus Aran to stay loved for long.

The air around the Metroid changed; it turned sour as the vibrations emanating from the parasite turned from a soothing hum to an angry buzz. Samus felt the ground underneath her tremble with that same sickening shiver that happened when Mother Brain's body moved. She tilted her head back and almost screamed when she saw a bloodshot eyeball a mere arm's length from the Metroid's body.

Mother Brain had woken up and was staring at Samus, who was still smothered by the Metroid's furiously quivering body. Samus tried to move but her hatchling refused to lift off of her, and she felt cold horror grip her heart when she saw take a step back and align its head with her hatchling's fruit-laden form.

_Oh, if I could put you in a jar once more. If only you could hide.  
_

Her hatchling was—

Mother Brain was—

The mechanical brain opened its mouth and fire fell from its lips like a curse.

Instinctively flinching into the ground, Samus cried out in anger instead of pain as the Metroid took the full force of the blow. But for all the pain it was enduring, it pressed its body all the more firmly onto its imprinted mother.

Enraged that she could not get at her prey, Mother Brain launched into a relentless attack, vomiting destruction onto the bounty hunter's hatchling from point-blank range, making the creature cry out and squeal and squirm and yet it held steady, a bubble of steel over its mother, refusing to let her body suffer the same fate as its own, even as its own life began to bleed out from beneath it as it gave birth to its own mother's salvation.

Samus, in the meantime, horrified that the Metroid was willingly putting itself in harm's way, was trying to use her strength to push it away from her, all the while keeping her eyes locked on Mother Brain's grotesque face, made even more warped by the jelly-like membrane through which she saw it.

"_Move!_" she pleaded desperately, shoving roughly at the Metroid's jellyfish body, feeling the squishy membrane sink under her palms. "She'll kill you if you don't get out of here!"

Another blast from the Mother Brain's mouth made the dome of jelly shudder around her and finally, _finally, _her hatchling jerked away. Its body was lumpy and miscolored; two of its mandibles were cracked in multiple places, and one was missing completely. The nuclei in its clear dome flickered like smoldering embers.

And in the back of her mind, Samus knew.

But her heart had hope. And that hope gave her strength.

She rose up to her full height, charging her Power Beam, bracing her elbow with her left hand, and prepared to let fly. She felt an indescribable power in her arm, burning from her brain all the way down to the tips of her fingers, and knew she had to make it count.

"You are _dead, _Mother!" she belled in a terrible voice. "You have preyed upon the helpless and I will no longer tolerate your existence! Now_ I_ shall be your opponent!"

The Mother Brain's head jerked up as if pulled by an invisible string; the mouth opened and it belched out white-hot fury. Samus ran directly into the line of fire. She could take the pain now. Her hatchling had shown her what to do.

But strangely enough, even though she was standing in the path of Mother Brain's tyrant-born flame, Mother Brain aimed her attack at something above the bounty hunter's head.

If she had known what was going to happen, she wouldn't have looked.

But Samus Aran was used to seeing such sacrifice.

The cry pierced her ears and shattered her heart and for one wretched second, Samus Aran thought that she was seeing the death of her parents all over again.

Above her, its body illuminated in stark contrast to the dark hell of a room around it, the last Metroid, the once-infant now-huge survivor of a species, _her hatchling_, was lanced through with the fire of Mother Brain's rage.

_How small it was. _Her mind's eye saw the egg, cherry color swirled with white, and her mouth filled with the taste of mango.

Something terrible flooded in her chest and she realized it was sorrow, poignant and sharp and coming deathly close to piercing her heart.

She could only watch as the hatchling's body writhed and began to sink towards the floor, its membrane bubbling from the intense heat. It was crying; she could feel it in the air around its body, sick little vibrations of agony that wracked its jelly frame. It was hovering out of her reach but falling fast. She could have caught it, once, when it was small, and it would have burrowed into her neck, buzzing, tickling the soft spot of skin above her collar bone.

But it could no longer burrow and would never again make her laugh with its funny squashy vibrations. She reached up with both arms, grasping one of its mandibles with her left hand as gently as she could, before moving her palm up to rest against the now charred and rubbery texture of its once red round bubble body. The normally healthy-looking raspberries—_nuclei_, she corrected herself—were bruised purple.

Her thumb moved from side to side, little infinitesimal strokes of comfort come too late. Its resulting skree was weaker than a whisper.

"Oh. Oh, it's okay, it's okay," she told it numbly. "I've got you."

The light contact of her hand was too much for her hatchling to handle.

And the body that had once bounced off the walls of her ship, the little form that could jam between the control panel and the windshield and could fit into the warm thrumming space behind an icebox, the hatchling that had liked to smash itself into her cleavage while she slept, smelling of mangos and glowing the color of sherbet and sunset and love, fell to pieces like rain all around her.

* * *

raw. very raw.


	8. VIII

One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing

You're gonna spread your wings and take the sky

But till that morning, there is nothing can harm you

With your mother standing by.

—_Summertime_

VIII

_What kind of mother am I?_

It looked like God.

Samus, elbows resting on the control board of her ship, fingers folded over her nose and mouth in a gesture that looked almost like prayer, watched as Zebes shattered into dust with a whisper of sound and the brightest light she had ever seen. Rings of destruction rippled out from the core of the vaporized planet and went on for thousands of lightyears in all directions, making her ship rattle all around her; the last vestiges of an entire world's existence burned out before her eyes in a matter of mere heartbeats.

And when all had settled, there was no trace of her past to be found.

She removed her hands from her face and placed them firmly on the control panel. She had not yet removed her Power Suit and her fingers felt heavy in their protective segmented casings. Looking closely, she could see that they were trembling. She clenched them into her palms and shoved her hands into her lap.

After a moment, she stood up, woodenly walking out of the cockpit, past the galley, and into a small recharging compartment. Withdrawing her concentration from the power suit, she watched as the individual suit parts dropped off of her body, landing heavily at her feet. Mechanically putting the suit in the recharging station, she was about to return to the cockpit when her stomach twisted in a hungry growl.

She opened the icebox in the galley and pulled out a plastic packet of water, and then after a moment, opened the container of fruit. It was empty; a few red and yellow flecks remained stuck to the bottom of the plastic. She put it back, closed the icebox door, and returned to the cockpit with her water packet in her hand.

Sitting rigidly in her pilot's chair, her gunship humming with electronic life all around her, Samus Aran wrestled with the grief threatening to spill over and consume her. Her childhood home was destroyed—the ancient ancestral planet of her Chozo saviors was reduced to a memory in her heart, and Mother Brain—

Samus looked down at her shaking hands.

She did not know that it was possible to impart that level of destruction upon a machine, but she had done it. Her body, her suit, and her arm cannon had been bursting with strange, exhilarating, terrifying energy, and she had unleashed that wrath with blind, wordless rage. Mother Brain's screams, more piercing than Ridley's, still rang in her ears.

She had not killed Mother Brain.

She had _slaughtered _her.

But the conduit that had blessed her with that saving grace….

She caught her lower lip in a heavy bite to stifle the tears that were threatening to spill over.

Mother Brain was gone. Zebes was gone. Her hatchling—

_Was so, so small. _

Every time she thought about it, a physically painful lance of sorrow burned its way up through her chest as flared in the pit of her throat, near the hatchling's favorite perch.

_What kind of mother am I?_

It had perished while protecting her and it should have been the other way around.

_Mothers are willing to die for their offspring, aren't they?_

Always analytical, her mind wanted to dissect the situation, torturing her with lost possibilities of what she _could have _done, what she _should have _done, what she _failed_ to do.

She was not thinking about the universally accepted fact that Metroids were supposed to be heartless creatures whose only desires were to consume life energy and reproduce in devastatingly threatening numbers.

She was not thinking about the scientist's ignorant condemnation of her hatchling, calling it part of a 'morbid' species. Her hatchling, who _knew who she was_, who ate fruit and squealed when it heard her voice and followed her around like a pet, no—a child.

She was thinking that the Metroid, her hatchling, the small, squishy, mango-heavy child of a bounty hunter, had died in her stead.

_What kind of mother am I?_

She had avenged it, but that had not healed the wound in her heart.

Samus's hands came up and she buried her face in them, her form very, very still. She did not cry.

Instead she called forth the memories she had made over the past week, creating a story in her heart alongside the closed book of her time with the Chozo. Her little graveyard, her secret store of lost happiness, only to be opened during the darkest times in her life—this was her memorial of all those whom she had lost and could not bury.

It had only been in her life for a heartbeat.

But ever afterwards, Samus Aran, fearless bounty hunter, could only fall asleep if the turbofans on her gunship were spinning full throttle.

To her, it sounded like humming.

* * *

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaw the ship reminds her of our squeaking little fruit-eater. Dammit Mother!

That's it! I hope I at least created some Super Metroid nostalgia for you all. There's lots of stories about Samus fighting Mother Bitch, er, Brain, so that's why I skipped straight to post-battle.

Thanks to all of you who took the time to read this little blurb. I hope you enjoyed it.

(By the way, I saw the new gameplay trailer for Other M and I TOTALLY CALLED the reaching-hand-up to the hatchling part. Wrote the chapter before I saw it oh man I am so good. Not so much a fan of her floating in the air wearing the hatchling like a lumpy hat but what can you do. Despite the fact that I can't stand Team Ninja, I will definitely be Other M-ing when it's released. Even though I'm betting that the hatchling scene is a flashback cuz I guess everybody cares more about how BSL got Ridley on ice in Fusion, blah blah blah.)


	9. IX

One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing

You're gonna spread your wings and take the sky

But till that morning, there is nothing can harm you

With your mother standing by.

—_Summertime_

IX

It was not until much, much later that Samus Aran met the meaning, the rhyme and reason, for her most recent nightmare.

SR388 was much like she remembered it, save for those sick shivering blobs of green floating through the air like cancer.

One of them got into her.

As she was doubled over in pain in her gunship, her last coherent thought was, _No, I got into it. _

And then there was nothing for a very long time, save for the distant muttering of worried voices, and then pain in her body, rising like a wave to consume her, and then—

—thrumming.

_How familiar, _her fevered brain thought. The pain was seeping away from her limbs like mud being washed away by rain.

She knew this feeling. And deep in the back of her mind she felt a connection, a snap of recognition, that her subconscious connected to.

When she woke up, the scientists sat down next to her hospital cot and told her that her body had been changed, altered to its very core, but that it had been the only way to save her from the X parasites.

Samus did not speak to them.

From the moment the doctors mentioned _Metroid vaccine, _she turned her gaze to her hand.

_So this was where you were. _

_

* * *

  
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Lol I can't count. Last chapter. Thought it was a nice little wrap-up blurb. 200-some words of Fusion goodness.


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